Trump: "Extreme Vetting" of Immigrants; Military and Cyber Warfare Against ISIS

Trump: "Extreme Vetting" of Immigrants; Military and Cyber Warfare Against ISIS

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Written by Fern Sidman

Created: August 17, 2016

In a major foreign policy and national security speech on Monday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump took the stage in Youngstown, Ohio and boldly addressed the nefarious agenda of the radical Islamist movement. While in this most important swing state, Trump proposed a significant revamping of immigration and law enforcement policy toward preventing domestic terrorist attacks.

He assured his audience that he would do his utmost to halt immigration from some parts of the world and to employ “extreme vetting” on immigrants from the remainder. Under his leadership, Trump said he would ask that all federal investigators and prosecutors focus on eliminating the threat of terrorist groups and various sleeper cells.

His nearly 50-minute address touched on a panoply of points concerning the exponential growth of radical Islam as well as the abysmal failure of the Obama administration to quell the pernicious threat. He outlined specific plans to push back on radical Islam and offered cogent modalities on how to “make America safe again.”

“All actions should be oriented around this goal and any country which shares this goal will be our ally,” Trump said. That would include countries — Trump mentioned Russia in particular — with which the U.S. might have major disagreements on other issues. “We cannot always choose our friends but we can never fail to recognize our enemies,” he said.

“This summer, there has been an ISIS attack launched outside the war zones of the Middle East every 84 hours. Here, in America, we have seen one brutal attack after another,” Trump declared.

Speaking of the existential threat of cyber attacks by radical Islamic movements, Trump called for blocking terrorists from using the internet “as a recruiting tool and for other purposes.” He said, “We must shut down their access to this form of communication and we must do it immediately.”

He called for “new and even stronger sanctions” on terror groups like ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. “Military, cyber, and financial warfare will all be necessary to dismantle Islamic terrorism,” he said.

In dealing with other nations, “My administration will speak out against the oppression of women, gays and people of different beliefs,” he said.

Donald Trump said he would test would-be immigrants for anti-Semitic beliefs and that Israel would be a key ally in defeating radical Islam, according to a JTA report.

“We should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people,” Trump said.

Explaining why he favored such a policy, he cited the French experience as an example. “Beyond terrorism, as we have seen in France, foreign populations have brought their anti-Semitic attitudes with them,” he said. Anti-Semitism existed and at times thrived in France for centuries before its recent waves of immigrants, although recent high-profile attacks on Jews have been carried out by French Muslim extremists.

Trump also said Israel would be key in an alliance to face down the spread of radical Islam. “As president, I will call for an international conference focused on this goal,” he said. “We will work side by side with our friends in the Middle East, including our greatest ally, Israel.” He said this would define the “signs of radicalization” and help identify the recruiting networks which, he correctly noted, have already taken root in the U.S.

In addition to working with Israel, Trump said that the commission would “partner with King Abdullah of Jordan, and President Sisi of Egypt, and all others who recognize this ideology of death that must be extinguished.”

“In addition to screening out all members or sympathizers of terrorist groups, we must also screen out any who have hostile attitudes towards our country or its principles – or who believe that Sharia law should supplant American law,” he said, referring to the Muslim religious canon.

In a resolute voice, Trump said, “As soon as I take office, I will ask the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to identify a list of regions where adequate screening cannot take place. We will stop processing visas from those areas until such time as it is deemed safe to resume based on new circumstances or new procedures.

The size of current immigration flows are simply too large to perform adequate screening. We admit about 100,000 permanent immigrants from the Middle East every year. Beyond that, we admit hundreds of thousands of temporary workers and visitors from the same regions. If we don’t control the numbers, we can’t perform adequate screening. By contrast, my opponent wants to increase the flow of Syrian refugees by 550% percent.”

Trump dedicated a portion of his speech to spotlighting the fecklessness of the Obama administration in taking concrete measures to eviscerate the threat of radical Islam. He noted that these failed policies were clearly evidenced in the nuclear rollback deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“The nuclear deal puts Iran, the No. 1 state sponsor of radical Islamic terrorism, on a path to nuclear weapons,” he said. “In short, the Obama-Clinton foreign policy has unleashed ISIS, destabilized the Middle East and put the nation of Iran – which chants ‘Death to America’ – in a dominant position.”

“Anyone who cannot name our enemy, is not fit to lead this country. Anyone who cannot condemn the hatred, oppression and violence of Radical Islam lacks the moral clarity to serve as our President, “ Trump explicated.

Recalling President Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world when delivering his address in Cairo at the beginning of his first term, Trump said, ”no moral courage could be found. Instead of condemning the oppression of women and gays in many Muslim nations, and the systematic violations of human rights, or the financing of global terrorism, President Obama tried to draw an equivalency between our human rights record and theirs.”

He added that, “The failures in Iraq were compounded by Hillary Clinton’s disaster in Libya. President Obama has since said he regards Libya as his worst mistake. According to then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the invasion of Libya was nearly a split decision, but Hillary Clinton’s forceful advocacy for the intervention was the deciding factor.

With one episode of bad judgment after another, Hillary Clinton’s policies launched ISIS onto the world.

Yet, as she threw the Middle East into violent turmoil, things turned out well for her. The Clintons made almost $60 million in gross income while she was Secretary of State”.

Detailing the trajectory of ISIS, Trump said that it “Has spread across the Middle East, and into the West. In 2014, ISIS was operating in some 7 nations. Today they are fully operational in 18 countries with aspiring branches in 6 more, for a total of 24 – and many believe it is even more than that.”

He noted that “The situation is likely worse than the public knows: a new Congressional report reveals that the Administration has downplayed the growth of ISIS, with 40% of surveyed analysts saying they had experienced efforts to manipulate their findings. At the same time, ISIS is trying to infiltrate refugee flows into Europe and the United States.”

He added that, “My Administration will aggressively pursue joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS, international cooperation to cut- off their funding, expanded intelligence sharing, and cyberwarfare to disrupt and disable their propaganda and recruiting.”

In terms of retaining classified military information and not telegraphing his plans in that realm, Trump said, “my Administration will not telegraph exact military plans to the enemy. I have often said that General MacArthur and General Patton would be in a state of shock if they were alive today to see the way President Obama and Hillary Clinton try to recklessly announce their every move before it happens – like they did in Iraq – so that the enemy can prepare and adapt.”

Fern Sidman

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